


Chaos Theory

by CrystalNinjaPhoenix



Series: Crystal's Septic Fic Universe [8]
Category: jacksepticeye
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:55:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25295044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrystalNinjaPhoenix/pseuds/CrystalNinjaPhoenix
Summary: There's a new villain in town, and Jackieboy is on his list. Jackie finds himself in the middle of a dangerous game, and his four friends are involved as well. In a matter of life or death, Jackie scrambles to keep up with this villain, desperate to protect the ones he cares about.
Series: Crystal's Septic Fic Universe [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1842199
Comments: 5
Kudos: 11





	1. The Game

**Author's Note:**

> This was a short piece I did for Halloween 2019. Not much to say about it, except that I really liked writing it ^-^ Enjoy!

“ _Wake up Jackieboy. You have a busy night ahead of you._ ”

Most people, upon waking up to a strange voice calling their name after passing out in their apartment, would be understandably freaked out. Jackie not so much. Of course this was weird and suspicious and definitely not good news, but it was part of his life at this point. Now he just had to wonder who it was this time.

Jackie opened his eyes and saw he was lying on a bed, on top of red blankets. He noticed two things right away: one, he had a killer headache, and two, he was wearing his super suit, which he distinctively did _not_ remember wearing before…before he got here. How did he get here? The last thing he did remember was heating up some leftover pizza after work and chowing down on it while he watched YouTube. It tasted a bit funny, and he did get pretty sleepy pretty quickly after eating it…oh.

He sat up, looking around the strange room. No windows, only one door. It reminded him a bit of a hotel room. He wasn’t sure why, it was something in the simple furniture: couch, long table against the wall, short coffee table, and armchair. None of the sitting furniture looked too comfortable to sit in. The walls were wallpapered red, to match the red and brown furniture. There was a screen mounted on the wall with speakers next to it.

“ _Ah, there you are. Right on time._ ” The screen flickered to life, showing static briefly before clearing to a red screen. “ _I was starting to worry I messed up my calculations for the dosage._ ”

“Who are you?” Jackie stood up and addressed his demands toward the screen. “Where am I? How did you get inside my apartment?”

“ _Uh, lockpicking. It’s a useful skill that most people overlook. As for your other questions…_ ” A map of the city popped up on the screen, with a red dot blipping into being in the northeast part of the city. “ _You are here. And I’m definitely not going to tell you who I am. At least, not right away._ ”

“Ooookay…” Jackie’s eyes darted towards the room’s door. It was probably locked, but couldn’t hurt to try. He turned and walked towards it.

“ _Oh you do_ not _want to leave yet_.”

Jackie stopped in his tracks. That was…an odd thing to say. Well, it confirmed that this guy—male voice, higher pitch than his own, American accent—had visual on him as well as audio. Jackie turned back to the screen. “Why?”

“ _Well, I heard you were a fan of_ games.”

Jackie laughed. “Okay, Jigsaw, you want to play a game?” He folded his arms. “Let’s cut to the chase, why don’t we? What if I don’t play? Are you going to kill me?”

“ _I guess you’ve been threatened so much that situations like this don’t exactly phase you, then?_ ” The voice sounded…intrigued. And slightly amused. “ _That makes sense. Anyway, no, I’m not going to kill you. But it’s in your best interest to play along. Or actually, your friends’ best interest._ ”

Jackie felt his heart stop, then resume, pumping ice through his veins. “…what?” The word was barely audible.

“ _Oh yeah._ ” The map on the screen vanished, four pictures replacing it. Jackie turned to stone as he realized who the pictures were of. Chase, Schneep, Marvin, and Jameson. All the pictures had the look of being taken candidly, capturing them as they went about their business in the city, photos from a distance, around corners, and through leaves. “ _I know where you live, Jackieboy. You think I don’t know who your friends are?_ ”

“What did you do?” It came out as a whisper, so he repeated the words, louder with rage. “What did you do?! If you’ve done anything to them—”

“ _You won’t be able to do anything about it._ ”

Jackie growled and kicked the back of the armchair.

The voice laughed. “ _But don’t worry! They’re perfectly fine. Or, they are right now, at least. I can’t promise they will be later tonight._ ”

Jackie’s heart was pounding as if he’d just ran 30 meters in a dead sprint. His eyes flicked back and forth between the photos on the screen. His friends. This psycho had his friends. “What…what are you going to do? What do you want from me?”

“ _Well, it’s very simple._ ” The pictures on the screen disappeared, replaced by a white screen with bullet points. “ _First of all._ ” The bullet points filled in as the voice talked. “ _I’ll give you a series of puzzles to solve. These puzzles will lead you to locations where your friends are, and tell you which one is there. Second, you have six hours to solve these puzzles and get to all your friends_.” A clock popped on screen, showing the time: 12:09am. “ _If you fail to get to anyone in time, you lose the game and…well, you won’t be seeing them again. And finally, if you get help from anyone, if you go to the police, you forfeit the game. Which is a form of losing. And again, you can say goodbye to anyone you’ve left behind if you lose. Any questions?_ ”

By this point, Jackie had taken off his super suit’s glove so he could chew on his nails. Okay. Seemed simple enough, even if the stakes were high. He could do puzzles. Hopefully. “If—I mean, when I get my friends back, can I ask them for help or do they count for the third rule?”

“ _Of course. What else are friends for?_ ”

Jackie exhaled, releasing tension he didn’t know he was holding.

“ _Are you ready to play?_ ”

“I…uh…” Jackie hesitated, then nodded. “How do I start?”

“ _Look on the table by the wall. Do you see a flat package there?_ ” An arrow appeared on the screen, pointing toward the table. There was indeed a flat cardboard box. “ _Inside it is a laptop. The first set of puzzles is on there, in the files._ ”

Jackie glared at the package. He didn’t know if he should trust anything this voice gave to him. But he didn’t think the guy would send the puzzles to his own personal laptop. He walked toward the table and snatched up the package.

“ _There will be four sets of puzzles,_ ” the voice explained. “ _Increasing in difficulty, of course. Don’t worry, you can use Google, this is an open-book quiz. Just know I’ll be watching. And hurry up! It is currently ten minutes after midnight. You have until 6:10am to solve all the puzzles._ ” A timer popped up on screen, reading six hours. “ _The game starts now. Go!_ ” The timer started ticking down.

Jackie didn’t even reply, just ran towards the door, threw it open, and came out into a run-down hallway, lined with doors with one at the end. He dashed towards the door at the end, pushed through it, and stumbled onto the street. He looked left, right, then ran toward the city center.

Six hours.

The game was on.


	2. The First Clues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackie starts to solve the puzzles left behind by this mysterious villain.

The city buses stopped running at eleven each night, which meant when Jackie arrived at a bus stop at 12:32am he wasn’t even going to entertain the idea of taking a ride back to his apartment. Besides, even if they did run this late, he doubted any bus driver would give a ride to the city vigilante, which he was easily identifiable as while wearing this suit.

He sat down on the bench, using the light from the streetlights to see while he tore open the cardboard box. The laptop inside was clunkier than the most recent models, and it didn’t have a brand label on it anywhere. When he pried it open, there was a yellow sticky note on the screen, with a message made from letters cut out from a newspaper: _The password is your birthday, year and all. 6 digits._

“Oh great. Psycho knows my birthday, got a real stalker here,” Jackie muttered to himself as he powered up the computer. A hysterical smile twisted his face. “What else does he know? My shoe size? My underwear color?” He let loose a small giggle as he typed his birthday into the slot for the password: 100790.

 _PASSWORD INCORRECT_ flashed on the screen. Jackie blinked, then reentered the series of numbers, slower. The same message popped up. Jackie leaned back against the bench. Were there more numbers? No, the note said six. Then it hit him. He typed in 071090. The lock screen disappeared, the desktop loading up. Jackie breathed a sigh of relief. Stupid backwards American dates. Stupid American creep getting him to play this twisted game.

Speaking of that guy, he said the first set of puzzles would be in the files. Jackie went to pull off his glove so he could use the mousepad on the laptop before remembering he already took it off. He shrugged, then gave the screen’s desktop a once-over. Mostly empty, except for a few shortcuts on the desktop, including one for Google Chrome. The background picture was a blank red screen that kind of hurt Jackie’s eyes to look at. The only thing pinned to the taskbar was the file explorer, so Jackie clicked on that.

After exploring the files, he found there was a single zip folder in the Documents named “Set 1.” After unzipping it, he found it contained two files: 1.txt and 1.ogg.

Wait, wasn’t .ogg an audio file? Did he dare risk playing whatever message this…gamemaster left for him while in a public place? Sure, it was midnight and the streets were empty as far as he could see, but you never knew…and then Jackie noticed the pair of white earbuds sitting in the box next to the laptop. He closed his eyes and sighed, then plugged the earbuds in and put them on.

The laptop came with an audio player installed, which he clicked on, uploading the 1.ogg file. He pressed play and—

“Jesus fuck!” Jackie yanked out the earbuds, instinctively leaning back against the wave of distorted sound that had blasted his ears. He hurried to press pause on the sound. “What the shhhhhit was that?” He hissed.

He decided to come back to that later, opening the 1.txt file with notepad. Inside was empty, except for a url: **6368616f737468656f7279.com**. Jackie frowned, then opened the Internet browser, copy-pasting the url into the search bar.

The webpage that popped up was blank white except for a single line of text: **Enter Password** with a space to type something.

“Are you fucking—?!” Jackie set the laptop on the bench and stood up, walking a few circles around the bench and pulling on his fingers while he tried to calm down. “Okay. Okay, focus. Think, Jackie. Get into that zone. What could the password be? Where could I find it?”

After a few minutes of walking, something occurred to him. That distorted audio. First, what was the point of it? Why include it if it wasn’t important to the puzzle? And second, he’d heard a lot of distorted audio before. This didn’t sound like random white noise. It sounded like something that had been a normal audio file, but had been tampered with.

So, stands to reason that there would be a way to un-tamper it. And maybe…there would be a message once the puzzle was unscrambled. Jackie took a deep breath, then sat back down and grabbed the laptop again.

The computer’s audio player had settings to edit the file with. After speeding up the sound, playing with the pitch, and reversing the audio, he had it sounding _almost_ recognizable. In fact, it sounded familiar…Jackie pressed the earbuds closer. He knew this song. “What is this?” he muttered. He racked his brains, flapping his wrist to help him think. Come on, he definitely knew it…

“Lone Digger!” He finally shouted. “Yea!” He punched the air. The song was by Caravan Palace, who were absolutely fantastic. Jackie wasn’t usually one for electro swing, but he liked them. He actually recommended them to JJ the other day—

Jackie froze. Oh. JJ.

On the one hand, the gamemaster could’ve chosen the song at random. On the other, if this guy knew who his friends were…how many conversations could he have overheard? What if the song choice meant something?

Jackie checked the time on the laptop clock. 12:41am. He had five hours and nineteen minutes left. That sounded like such a short amount of time. He took a deep breath. The night felt a lot colder than it had even a few moments before.

He’d done his best to clear up the distortion in the song, but there were still some odd random noises. Maybe there was another program to help with that. He scanned the shortcuts on the desktop. A visualizer program? He opened it, then loaded his editted version of the 1.ogg file. There were a few filters he could turn on, and he began messing about with them. When he turned on the spectrogram, he sat up straight. Numbers had suddenly appeared in the visual representation of the sound file. 1031, it read.

Jackie switched back over to the strange website, entering 1031 in the spot for the password. After a few seconds when he waited with baited breath, the page changed from the password screen to a map, along with a sidebar with some text along the left of the screen. He recognized the area the map was showing: a spot in the west side of the city, a historic section. The map had no markers. But the sidebar with text could hold some answers. Three questions were written there.

Jackie took a deep breath, fingers drumming on the bench next to him. This area wasn’t too close, but if he ran, he should get there within thirty minutes. Okay. He was doing good on time. He could do this. He deliberately pushed away the voice in his head reminding him of the stakes of the game, reading through the questions.

**1\. Q: What is the shortest blade a knife can have and still be brought to a public gathering, as of current city laws?**

**A: _ inches**

**2\. Q: How many letters are there in the British Sign Language Alphabet?**

**A: 2_**

**3\. Q: What year was the first film with sound released?**

**A: 192_**

Okay. If Jackie had any doubts about who he was trying to save for the first set, they had now been erased. His stomach was full of worms, but he pushed them down farther and calmly opened another tab on the browser.

He had to Google the city laws on knives, and then open up a converter for metric system to American system, but he found the answer easily enough. He didn’t need Google for the second question; it was technically a trick. If you were talking letters and not signs in general, there were the same number of letters as the spoken and written English alphabet. He did have to look up the last one, though.

(3) inches. 2(6) letters. 192(7).

367.

Jackie examined the map on the screen again. There, an address in the area: 367 Studio Blvd, a street appropriately named as an old film studio was located there. In fact, the studio’s address was 367.

The time was 12:49am.

The clock was tick, tick, ticking.

Jackie slammed the laptop shut. He knew how to get there. He was fast, and he had the stamina to run for a while. He packed the computer and its earbuds back into the cardboard box, then stood up.

“Hang on, Jays. I’m coming,” he whispered. And then he ran. 


	3. The Studio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackie arrives at the location specified by the puzzles, and finds one of his friends.

Jackie was out of breath when he finally arrived at the studio, a stitch digging into his side. He stumbled to a stop, leaning against the nearest wall to recover. Just because he _could_ run for a long time didn’t mean he felt good afterward. He should’ve taken this at a jogging pace, but time was of the essence. 

After allowing himself a long break, Jackie straightened, clasping the box with the laptop to his chest and looking around. Of course, it was dark. Because the city didn’t pay to install lights in an area that was only valued for its history. So Jackie had no idea if film studios looked anything like he thought they did. But the large buildings did almost resemble warehouses, and that was something he understood. Now. Which building to search first? Jackie figured he might as well start with the nearest one.

And then when he opened the door to the nearest one and started to walk into the darkness, he ran into a plastic wrap strung across the doorway like it was a prank video. He scowled, then took a step back to read the note taped to the plastic. _Not this one!_ it read in typed letters. _Next one over – >_

Welp. At least this guy had a sense of humor. Though Jackie suspected that sense of humor was more warped than it first appeared.

The next studio had its lights on, blinding Jackie to the point where he had to blink for a moment to get used to it. The studio was nothing but a wide, empty room. Vintage lights and other old-fashioned filming equipment were scattered about, probably for tours. What clearly wasn’t for tours were the bright red arrows painted on the floor, twisting around the equipment and leading down a hallway. Words were also painted on the floor, clearly written with use of a stencil. THIS WAY JACKIEBOY, the floor read. Jackie scowled, but he had to admit he appreciated the help. 

He followed the arrows cautiously, almost afraid of what he’d find at the end of the trail. He’d been deliberately avoiding thinking about the aim of the game, but now it was twisting his stomach in knots. What state would the others be in when he found them? What if they were hurt? If this sick gamemaster did anything to them Jackie was going to track him down and fucking beat the shit out of him.

The arrows stopped at a discreet door down the hall, indistinguishable from all the doors around it. Jackie had no idea what these rooms were originally used for but it really didn’t matter. There was another typed note taped to the door: _I’d tell you to knock, but it’s not like he’d be able to tell you he was inside._

“Oh, you absolute bastard,” Jackie muttered furiously. “That’s not something you fucking joke—why am I talking to myself?!” He grabbed the door handle and tried twisting it open, only for it to stop suddenly. Jackie swore his heart stopped too. He jiggled it, but it wouldn’t turn further. “Jameson? JJ?” Jackie raised his voice, yelling through the door. “If you’re inside, I’m here! It’s fine!” He stopped trying to turn the handle and instead kicked the spot on the door right under it. He growled and set the box with the laptop on the ground. Then he grabbed the handle again and turned it at the exact moment he shoved his shoulder against the door, throwing all his weight against it.

The door immediately gave way, and Jackie fell flat on his face. Scrambling to his feet, Jackie turned his head on a pivot as he looked around the small room. It was stuffed with racks of costumes and accessories, a clash of colors in the yellow electric light. Hidden among the costumes was a chair, and tied to the chair was a familiar face.

“Jameson!” Jackie crossed the room in just a few bounds, skidding to a halt next to the chair. Jameson immediately tensed. There was a black cloth blindfold tied around his eyes, and though he seemed to recognize Jackie’s voice, he was also wary. “Hang on, hang on, I-I’m getting you out of here,” Jackie said as soothingly as possible, pulling at the blindfold. The knot was tight, so he pulled the cloth itself off until it hung around Jameson’s neck.

Jameson squeezed his eyes shut immediately. “Hey, it’s okay, you’re okay.” Jackie took a moment to place his hands on Jameson’s shoulders, an anchor to the rest of the world. “We’re gonna get out of here.” How long had he been here already? It had to be a few hours at least, right? Fuck.

After a few moments, Jameson opened his eyes, blinking and squinting at the sudden light. With his hands bound behind his back, he couldn’t speak, but Jackie could read questions in his eyes. What’s happening? Where are we? What about the others? “Don’t worry, I’ll explain everything,” Jackie said, a tired smile on his face. “Or, as much as I know.”

Jackie rushed out the explanation while wrestling with the ropes around Jameson’s wrists and ankles. By the time he finished untying him, Jameson was basically caught up. “And so now there’s…uh, four and a half hours left to find everyone else,” Jackie finished. 

JJ was taking this surprisingly well. Or at least, if he was freaking out, he was doing so internally. _Alright, I believe I understand,_ he signed. _But what do we do next?_

“I, uh, don’t know,” Jackie admitted. He pulled JJ to his feet, bracing himself as JJ stumbled a bit, falling against him.

There was a sudden high-pitched whining sound, followed by a crackling. “ _Maybe you should check your email._ ” It was the gamemaster’s voice, sounding tinny and small.

Jackie jumped, looking around. “Intercom,” he muttered, then raised his voice. “You’re not going to give us any sort of explanation, are you?”

“ _You know for what it’s worth, you’re going faster than I thought you would be. You might even have time to spare._ ”

“Gee, thanks.”

JJ frowned. _I don’t suppose there’s a reward for being ahead of the curve, is there?_

For a moment, the intercom crackled. “ _Okay, I’m going to be honest with you, I’ve been trying to study ASL and BSL but it’s going pretty slow and I have no idea what you just said._ ”

JJ sighed, then made a gesture that most definitely was not sign language.

“ _Wow, okay, no need for that._ ”

“You know I actually think there _is_ a need for it, you kidnapping freak,” Jackie remarked. He held up a hand. JJ high-fived it.

More intercom crackling. “ _Well anyway, I hope you didn’t break that laptop when you dropped it, because you’re going to need it. Check your email. You’re going to love this next set. You ever play Until Dawn? It’s a good game, a little cheesy, but fun._ ”

Jackie blinked. “Okay…?” He had played it, but not in a while. So if this puzzle set was composed of references to that game, he wasn’t going to get it without research.

“ _Oh, and I’ll remind you that the timer is still counting down. It’s currently 1:38am. That gives you four hours and thirty-two minutes to solve the other three sets. Good luck._ ” And there was a click, and the intercom shut off.

Jackie exhaled slowly. He fought the urge to sit down in the room’s single chair. Keep going. Find the other three. He could do this.

There was a hand on his shoulder. Jackie started, then looked over at JJ, who gave him an encouraging smile, accompanied by a mustache waggle. Jackie laughed. “Alright. You and me, buddy. We got to get to the others. Now come on. I don’t want to spend any more time in this place than I have to.” 


	4. The Next Clues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now with JJ's help, Jackie goes about solving the next set of puzzles.

If anyone was walking through the streets of the historic section of the city at 1:40am, they would’ve been surprised to see the two men sitting on the curb, staring intently at the blue screen of a laptop. Jackie had the computer carefully balanced on his knees, JJ leaning on his shoulder as he watched. “And add to the list of things this guy knows about me,” Jackie muttered. “My freaking email! Yaaaay.”

 _That is a bit disturbing,_ JJ signed, frowning. _How could he know all this?_

“Look, as someone who’s hacked before, I can tell you that very little on the Internet is entirely secure.” Jackie opened his email, immediately noticing a message from an email address: 4d6164@gmail.com. “But still, this guy must have some crazy skills. I’m starting to think he supplemented any cyber stalking with regular stalking. You know, following us around. Maybe placing spy cameras in hidden locations.” He clicked on the email he’d received, opening it to see it was completely blank, except for an attached zip folder called “Set 2.”

 _That seems a tad excessive, doesn’t it?_ JJ asked, but he stopped, reconsidering. _Well, actually, this entire idea is excessive. If he wanted to go after you, he didn’t need to invent this entire twisted game._

“That’s true. But some people just like to fuck with others.” Jackie downloaded the zip file, then found it in the laptop’s Downloads folder and unzipped it. “What worries me is that I’ve never even heard of this guy…”

The “Set 2″ zip folder had just one file inside: 2.png. Frowning, Jackie clicked on it. What popped up was a black-and-white image of a staff, with wings sprouting from the top, two snakes twining around its length. “Oh! This, this! That’s a…uh..” Jackie bit his nails a bit, thinking.

JJ looked at him, then finger-spelled a word. _C-A-D-U-C-E-U-S._

“Yes! Caduceus!” Jackie shook his head. “Man, my brain is all over tonight. More than usual.” He took a deep breath. “You know what this is? It’s a medical symbol. Henrik has a sweater with a caduceus on it, Jack got him it for his birthday one year.” Guess they now knew who the second set of puzzles was for.

 _Focus, Jackie,_ JJ implored. _But is this all there is? I don’t understand what this could be pointing to, other than…who’s next._

“Well, with your puzzle I had to play around with editing an audio file.” Jackie closed the image and opened the laptop’s photo editor. “Might as well start doing the same for this picture. I mean, obviously not audio editing, but you know.”

The very first thing Jackie did when opening up the editor was click on the brightness slider and slide it all the way to the brightest setting. And words immediately appeared in the previously black area of the caduceus’s staff. Jackie leaned closer, tilting his head to the side. “ ‘Follow the skulls’…” he read out loud. His brows furrowed. “Well that means nothing.”

JJ waved his hand in front of Jackie’s face to get his attention, then signed, _Perhaps it relates to some clues in the city around us?_

“Maybe. But I don’t have any idea what that could be referring to.” Jackie tapped his fingers against the laptop’s edge. After a moment, he started playing around with more sliders on the editing program. After turning up the contrast, something else appeared. “Whoa, hey, what are these?”

A string of figures were now wrapping around the edges of the picture. Small words in the top left corner said “Start here.”

 _It must be some kind of code, right?_ JJ asked. _They’re numbers, but they go too high to be a simple alphabet substitution._

“Yeah, but there are letters too.” Jackie began reading the string out loud. “68 74 74 70 73 3a 2f 2f…I have no idea what this is. But I guess that’s what Google is for.” He opened up the website, plugging ‘cipher decoder’ into the search bar. An overwhelming amount of results popped up. He blinked. “I…I don’t even know where to start.”

 _Trial and error?_ JJ suggested.

Jackie’s face fell, a gray cloud falling over his expression. His eyes darted to the small clock in the corner of the laptop.

 _Perhaps there is one that could identify the cipher when you type it in?_ JJ suggested. _But other than that, we don’t really have much of an option._

“…you’re right. You’re right.” Jackie took a deep breath. And another. “Okay, let’s start.”

It took five minutes to find a decoder that gave them something recognizable after plugging in the code from the picture. It turned out to be a url for a YouTube video, which Jackie immediately typed into a new tab.

“Oh! Uh, there’s earbuds.” Jackie handed one of the buds to JJ. “We can listen together. I know we could just take out the earbuds and listen with the laptop speakers, but just in case…” Just in case of what? He wasn’t sure. But JJ took the earbud anyway, awkwardly putting it in.

Jackie didn’t know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t…this. He physically leaned backwards at the sound of the intro: “ _Yo, what’s up guys? I’m Chase, and welcome to Bro Average!_ ” He had to pause it for a moment, just to bask in the confusion. “I-I thought…” he said slowly. “Was…was I wrong about who…?”

JJ looked confused as well. _Perhaps it’s both of them?_

“But there are four sets? I-I don’t…?” Jackie shook his head. “Nevermind, it’ll make sense later, once we actually get to them. Because we’re going to. In time.” Jackie laughed. JJ gave him a concerned look that he waved away. “I-I’m fine, let’s just…see if there are any clues here.“ He pressed play.

It looked like any other video by Chase. In fact, Jackie thought he’d seen it before. It followed the same format at first. The music, the shots of Chase hanging out, the attempts at trickshots that always failed at first. Chase once said he liked to include the fails so the viewers would know he’s no better at these than anyone else, and that anyone could do the tricks if they tried. But then—

 _What was that?_ JJ signed quickly.

“I don’t know.” Jackie paused the video. He used the arrow keys to go back, but when that failed to pick anything up, he resorted to using the comma and period keys on the keyboard to go frame by frame. Until he finally managed to capture the image that had popped up for a split second: A hollow red circle, divided into fourths, with a red skull in the center. There were also a few strange dots and dashes along the bottom.

 _Am I correct in assuming Chase didn’t originally have those in his video?_ JJ asked. _But then, how did that get there? Is it possible to put images in a video on the web?_

“No, but…” Jackie tapped the screen. “This is on a different channel.” Indeed, instead of Chase’s BroAverage channel at the bottom of the video, the channel name was a string of numbers with a few letters that looked similar to the encoded url that had been hidden in the .png of the caduceus. “That means the video could’ve been downloaded, then edited and reuploaded. There could be more of these…actually, there probably are. The image said ‘follow the skulls,’ I bet it meant ones in here.” He frowned. “What are these dashes? Morse code?”

JJ nodded in agreement.

“Well, great, guess we’re going to have to write these down and find another decoder—”

 _Jackie._ JJ raised an eyebrow. _I know Morse code._

“You do?” Jackie blinked. “I didn’t know that. Since when?”

 _Since…_ JJ paused. _1923, I believe._

“Oh. Okay. Well, that saves us some time. Here, I’ll just open up Notepad and write down the code on this image, then we can see if there are more images sneaked into the video.”

There were. Five more times, the image of the red skull appeared, each time accompanied by more Morse code. Jackie copied the code into a page on Notepad, and once he was sure there was nothing else hidden in the video, he passed the laptop to JJ. JJ glared at the code, then slowly began the process of translating. Jackie looked around the dark city while he worked, legs bouncing. The city was always empty at night, but it seemed even quieter than normal. He didn’t like it.

What if the gamemaster was somewhere in the darkness right now? He said he’d be watching. How? What if he was following them? Or were there cameras, invisible eyes, dangling in the shadows? Making sure they didn’t break the rules and get help? What time was it? How much was left? Though he didn’t want to, Jackie began wondering what would happen if he failed. He knew the basics, of course, he’d never see the others again. But what would happen to them? Would it end with something as simple as a gunshot? Or would it last longer? Maybe they wouldn’t be killed at all, maybe they’d vanish into a worse fate—

JJ tapped Jackie’s arm, and Jackie yelped. JJ sharply withdrew his hand, then asked, _Are you alright?_

“Y-yeah, I-I just was, um…thinking. You startled me. Are you done?”

JJ clearly didn’t think Jackie was actually alright, but he nodded. _I’ve finished. I believe it’s an address._

“Here, lemme see.” Jackie scooted closer. It was indeed a simple address. “Spiralnest Street…that’s in the north part of the city. It…it’s dangerous there.”

 _Well, we don’t have much of a choice, do we?_ JJ signed, sighing.

“No. No, we don’t. We’re going to have to be quick, and hope we don’t attract any attention.” Jackie closed his eyes, preparing himself, then opened them again. “We can’t take public transportation, nothing runs this late at night. Neither of us can drive, and even if we could, we don’t have a car. How fast can you run?”

JJ bit his lip. _Not as fast as I would like._

Jackie looked at the time on the laptop. He watched the numbers change from 1:56 to 1:57. His stomach twisted sharply. “Okay. Okay. We have time. We’ll be quick.” He shut the laptop, putting it back in the box. “Let’s go.”

He stood up, and JJ did as well. He grabbed his hand and the two of them started running.

And somewhere else in the city, a man sitting at a desk leaned back in his chair, staring at a screen on a bank of monitors. Three hours left. They were still ahead of schedule, but now only slightly.

He reached over and switched cameras, checking first on a room with two people behind a sheet of plexiglass, then another with a single man lying unconscious on the floor. Good. Nothing had changed.

He stood up. By his calculations, it would take them anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour and a half to reach their destination. Enough time to drive over there and set up the final puzzle of Set 2. He chuckled.

He couldn’t wait for this part. It was a classic, one of his favorites. Though he had a feeling Jackieboy and his friends wouldn’t appreciate it as much.


	5. The Choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now arriving at the second location, Jackie finds himself faced with a decision he can't make.

2:42am, and Jackie and JJ arrived at the address coded into the video. The place looked like it had been abandoned for a while. It was a long, low building that might’ve been a shop at one point, but wasn’t now, judging by the boarded-up windows and dirty walls.

There was a typed note taped to the front door. It read: _It’s unlocked, should open easily enough. Jackieboy, you go in alone. If your friend comes in as well then you forfeit the game, and the others are gonna be gone._

Jackie was frozen solid, re-reading the note over and over again. He looked over at JJ, who looked back at him. _You don’t have to do it this way,_ JJ signed slowly.

“No, I do.” Jackie shook his head. “I’m not taking a risk with their lives.”

 _We can find another way,_ JJ signed, his eyes wide and pleading.

“We don’t have time to figure anything out. Every second counts. And besides, I bet he can see everything around this building. Cameras and shit. He’d know.”

JJ didn’t look happy, but he took a step back. _Please hurry._

“If I’m not back in…half an hour, then you can maybe come in after me.” After making sure JJ nodded in understanding, Jackie turned to the door. He swallowed nervously. “Wish me luck.”

 _Break a leg,_ JJ signed tensely.

Jackie didn’t answer. His stomach was jumping too much to even think about talking. He stepped forward, grabbed the doorknob, and was surprised when it turned and opened easily. After a moment’s hesitation, he stepped inside.

The door swung shut behind him. Jackie turned around and tried to open it again, just out of curiosity, only to find the door now locked. “How did you…?” He shook his head. He had no idea how it would do that, but it did, so now he only had to go forward. Quite literally. The dark hallway extending before him had no doors. He reached to the side and found a light switch, flicking it on and watching as lamps with bare bulbs dangling from the ceiling illuminated the run-down walls. At the very end, the hall turned. With nowhere else to go, he started walking.

He reached the turn at the end, and found himself in a rectangular room. The door was on one of the long sides, near the corner where it meant a shorter one. The room was divided in two with a sheet of glass. And pressed against the opposite wall were—

“Oh my god! Chase! Henrik!” Jackie ran forward, pressing his hands against the glass. Chase and Schneep were each tied to a chair with its back against the wall, a vertical divide made of wooden planks between them, preventing them from seeing each other. They were both gagged, so they couldn’t answer when Jackie shouted their names, but they looked over. Chase cried out and immediately started struggling against the ropes. Schneep began jerking his head to the side, where Jackie could see a glass door set in the wall separating him from them. “Hold on, I-I’m coming!” He ran for the glass door.

There was a sudden burst of white noise. “ _I wouldn’t do that if I were you._ ”

Jackie suddenly stopped running, taking a moment to regain his balance. “Oh, and why not, Mr. I’ll-Hide-My-Face-Like-A-Goddamn-Coward?”

“ _You call it being a coward, I call it being safe. And this is why not._ ” 

Jackie tensed as a clunking noise came from somewhere above him. Two panels in the ceiling opened up, on the other side of the glass. A strange device was lowered from each, a mess of mechanical parts. It took Jackie a moment to see the long length of metal, ending in a point, extending from each device. “H-hey! Don’t you—” He ran up to the glass and immediately slammed his fist against it. It rebounded, causing him to stagger backwards.

The gamemaster laughed. “ _It’s plexiglass, you idiot. Shatter-proof. You really think I’d take the chance of you messing up this next part of the game?_ ”

Jackie shook his hand, a snake of fear curling around his heart. “What…next part?”

“ _It’s very simple. You should see a control panel in the middle of the floor there._ ” Jackie immediately saw it. His eyes had skipped over it before, obviously more concerned with his friends in peril. But now he took notice. It wasn’t really much of a control panel; there were only two buttons on the surface. “ _Those buttons have a very simple function. Pressing them will open the door in the plexiglass so you can get to your friend. But they’re also wired up to those spike launchers. I’m sure you know the drill here. Only one of these two will walk of the building with you. Make your choice carefully._ ”

Jackie’s heart stopped. “You…you mean I press the button and I’ll _harpoon_ my friend?!”

“ _I mean, if you want to be so blunt about it—_ ”

“No!” Jackie stepped back until he was pressed against the opposite wall. His eyes darted around the room. It was empty except for the chairs, the control panel, the plexiglass, and the spikes. “No, you can’t make me do that!”

The gamemaster laughed. “ _Oh I think I can! You see, the launchers are also remote-controlled from my location. If you don’t choose one, then they both die._ ”

Jackie screamed, suddenly running forward and punching the plexiglass hard enough for him to rebound backwards and fall flat on his back. He climbed back up, the gamemaster still laughing. On the other side of the glass, Chase had gone very still, before suddenly intensifying his struggles. Schneep’s eyes were very wide, but he wasn’t moving. “You can’t!” Jackie shouted. “You can’t, you can’t, you can’t do this! You said they’d be fine if I solved your stupid puzzles in the time limit!”

“ _Did I ever tell you that you’d get_ all _of them back? Nope! I just said that if you took too long, or got help from anyone else, then they’d die. I never said they wouldn’t die anyway._ ”

“Liar! _Liar!_ ” Jackie could only pull his hair and shake his head. His eyes were threatening to spill over with tears. “I-I can’t do this. I-I can’t, don’t make me choose. Please don’t make me choose.”

“ _Well, you have to. That’s the only way to open the door.” The gamemaster sighed. “This is taking too long. You have five minutes to press a button, or else I’ll set both launchers off. Starting now. Tick, tock._ ”

“Shit!” Jackie gasped. His head whipped up, looking at the others on the other side of the plexiglass. Chase was still struggling, but now he was doing his best to gesture over to Schneep. Schneep meanwhile, caught Jackie’s eyes. His head jerked to the side, pointing at Chase.

In that moment, Jackie felt his heart crack a bit. God, why did both of them have to be like this? This wasn’t easy to begin with, but now he had to be reminded of how wonderful and loving both of them were, both willing to give up for the other.

He paced the floor, continuing to pull and play with his hair. A constant flow of mutterings escaped his mouth, everything along the lines of “Okay, okay, okay, this is happening, you have to, fuck, this is happening, okay, you have to, why, shit, fuck.” How could anyone make a decision like this?! This kind of sick twisted trick was only supposed to happen in movies and comic books. But here it was. He was holding the lives of his best friends in his hands.

He forced himself to calm down, and think through the swirl in his mind. From a logical perspective, Schneep was the better option. He was a doctor who could save many lives in the future, and if he was thinking short-term instead of long-term, Schneep was better at puzzles and trivia. But Jackie wasn’t purely logical. He thought about Chase’s kids, who were so dependent and loving. He thought about how if he chose Schneep, the last thoughts in Chase’s head would be how he wasn’t good enough to be saved.

Jackie stopped pacing and walked over to the control panel. One of the buttons had a picture of Chase, the other a picture of Schneep. Wait…if he pressed the one with their face did that mean it would save them or kill them? Oh fuck. Jackie pressed his hands to his eyes, taking deep breaths. The muffled cries the others were making sounded unnaturally loud in his ears. He couldn’t do this. He just couldn’t decide. But if he didn’t, then they’d both die.

“ _You have one minute left._ ”

Jackie jumped and looked up. Chase was panicking, shaking his head, and Jackie could see tears forming even from here. Schneep looked calmer, his eyes staring into nothing.

He couldn’t do it. But he had to.

Jackie squeezed his eyes shut, and with a half-strangled cry coming from deep in his throat, he slammed a hand down onto the control panel, pressing one of the buttons down. He cracked open an eye to see his hand had landed on the button with Schneep’s picture.

“ _Well I think you missed the point,_ ” the gamemaster said in a bitter tone. “ _But it works. And hey, at least_ he’ll _get the point._ ” Slightly manic laughter. “ _Get it?_ ”

The launcher in front of Schneep whirled to life.

“No! No!” Jackie pressed his face to the plexiglass and pounded it with his fist. “Henrik! Henrik, I’m sorry!”

Schneep met Jackie’s eyes. He tilted his head to the side, then glanced downward before looking back up. Then his eyes closed.

The launcher fired. There was a splash of red. Jackie stumbled back, covering his mouth.

The door in the plexiglass beeped, then opened.

Jackie screamed into his hand. He tore his eyes away from the scene before him, stumbling towards the now open door. Everything was frozen. Everything was broken and bleached, and the only thing he could do was get to Chase. Get to Chase, get him out of here, and maybe the world will resume its normal course.

Chase had his eyes squeezed shut, tears leaking from their corners. He was still struggling against the ropes binding him to the chair, though the struggles were weaker now. Jackie stopped by the chair and practically fell to his knees. “Hey. Buddy. I’m here, you’re getting out of here, I got you.” Assurances were falling from his mouth automatically while his hands were pulling at the gag in Chase’s mouth. Until finally, it came loose.

“J-Jackie?” Chase’s voice sounded so small. “What happened? What—is Henrik…?”

“Don’t look over there,” Jackie said dully. He was now working on the ropes tying Chase’s arms to the arms of the chair. “Don’t look, it’s going to be fine.”

Chase didn’t listen. He opened his eyes and turned his head toward Schneep, but the wooden barrier blocked his view. Tears started falling in force. “He’s—h-he’s—he’s d—isn’t he?”

“Don’t look, it’s going to be okay.” Jackie wished he could offer something more. But he was working on autopilot. Not even that, it felt like someone else was piloting. Someone else was untying Chase’s legs and telling him it’s going to be okay. Someone else was pulling Chase to his feet and letting him lean on his shoulder. Someone else was walking back through the room, partially covering Chase’s eyes as he sobbed, and following the hall back to the front door that was now unlocked again.

Jameson was pacing the sidewalk in front of the building nervously, rubbing his arms against the cool autumn breeze. When the door opened and Jackie and Chase staggered out, he stopped and ran up to them. _Is everything alright?_ he asked. He looked back and forth between Chase, crying, and Jackie, staring dully into space. _What’s wrong? What happened?_

Jackie looked at Jameson. “Henrik’s dead.”

Jameson stared. _What?_

“Henrik’s dead.” Saying the words made it real. Jackie’s eyes filled with tears, and then overflowed. “The guy—the sick fuck who set this up, h-he gave me a choice between—I d-didn’t even look, I couldn’t, I just pressed a button—I killed him. He’s dead.”

Jameson took a step backwards. He shook his head in disbelief, looking back and forth between Chase and Jackie like he was expecting them to tell him it was all just a joke. But when they didn’t, his expression broke. He turned and walked away, vanishing into the alley next to the building. and then there came the sound of trash cans clattering, falling against the ground, things being thrown against walls and slammed into bricks. When you couldn’t scream, you had to find other ways to make your pain clear.

Chase was still sobbing, leaning into Jackie’s shoulder like his legs couldn’t support him. Jackie eased him to the ground, now leaning against the wall of the building.

And then, from inside the building. “ _I suggest you don’t take too much time. You’re still on a deadline, you know_.”

Jackie whirled around and shouted through the open door. “Shut the fuck up you bastard! One of my best friends is dead now! Our friend is dead! You can’t show a little bit of sympathy, you heartless sociopath?!”

“ _Trust me, it’s in your best interest to finish the next set of puzzles quickly,_ ” the gamemaster said calmly. “ _I hate to put a time limit inside a time limit, but…well, actually I don’t. It makes the whole thing a lot more interesting_.”

Jackie’s anger suddenly turned to ice. “What do you mean?”

“ _Check your email, Jackieboy,_ ” the gamemaster said smugly. “ _And you’ll see why you need to hurry._ ”

Jackie paled to a ghost-like shade. He spun around. Shit, he didn’t lose the laptop, did he? No, the box was sitting on the sidewalk calmly. Jameson, now walking out of the alley, scooped it up. _I heard that,_ he signed, tucking the box under his arm. _You don’t think he’s saying…something will happen to Marvin if we’re not quick?_

“I think that’s exactly what he’s saying,” Jackie said quietly.

Sitting on the sidewalk, Chase wiped his eyes with his arm and sniffed. “W-well… then we’d better hurry, shouldn’t we?”

Jackie nodded. Once, and then again very quickly. Compartmentalize. Deal with the urgent situation first, then…“Let’s get out of here.” He reached down and grabbed Chase by the hand, pulling him to his feet. “I’ve had enough of this place.”

The other two nodded in agreement. Then the three of them walked down the street, determinedly not looking back. The silence was heavy on their backs.


	6. The Time Limit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even after what just happened, Jackie and the others have to continue, and this time, there's a limit within a limit.

They stopped only a few blocks away from the building, sitting on a street corner. Jackie made them stop, despite the fact that they all wanted to get farther away. He remembered the gamemaster’s warning about taking too long, and nerves started eating away at his stomach.

“Here, give me the laptop,” Jackie said. JJ handed him the box with the computer inside.

Chase watched as Jackie booted it up. “I…you know, I’m still not entirely sure what’s going on.” He sounded almost apologetic.

“We’re in Saw,” Jackie said, not taking his eyes away from the screen. “Some psycho decided to kidnap the group and threatened me with your deaths if I didn’t play his fucked-up game and solve his puzzles.”

Chase whistled. “Well, shit.”

“Yeah.” Jackie opened his email, finding another message from the same user as before. This one had a zip folder titled ‘Set 3′ attached. He quickly unzipped it, finding a few files inside: an image called 3.png, a folder called ‘3′, and a text file titled ‘open me first.’ Jackie did so, and inside was a single url. He opened the browser and copy-pasted the url into the search bar.

At first, the three of them found it hard to tell what they were looking at. The website was mostly black, with some white text, and a square that showed a dark video. Until they realized something was moving in the video. Jackie ran his hand through the box until he found the earbuds, plugging them into the laptop and putting them on. Suddenly, when he clicked the little sound icon on the video, he could hear the sound of rushing water and splashing, along with muffled cries and whimpers. His heart sank. “I’m gonna…” He turned up the brightness on the laptop.

Chase gasped. Jameson covered his mouth with his hand, eyes wide. Jackie leaned back. Marvin was in the video, bound and gagged. He was stuck inside a box with glass walls, small enough that he couldn’t straighten his legs. There was water slowly flowing into the box from a connected pipe. There was also a timer in the corner of the video, counting down: 55:12, 55:11, 55:10…

The time on the laptop’s clock read 3:03am.

“Is…is this live?” Chase asked.

“I think it is,” Jackie muttered.

“You can livestream shit like this?!” Chase shook his head. “Why haven’t the police—or whoever—why hasn’t someone stopped this?!”

“Well, firstly, because this video has probably only been active since tonight. And secondly, because you’d be surprised what goes up online.” Jackie leaned closer to the screen, looking around the website. “The Dark Web, you know? There are several sites that are like Twitch for sadists.” Unconsciously, he rubbed his left arm. “I don’t recognize this one, though.”

JJ snapped his fingers, drawing the other two’s attention. _There is a_ timer _in this video!_ he signed in obvious distress. _And it’s counting down. I don’t think we want to find out what will happen when it reaches zero._

Jackie shoot his head. “You’re right. We need to hurry. My guess is that timer is how long it’ll take for that box to fill up with water, and then…” He shuddered, immediately closing the web page. “We have to find out where that is. And it’s going to be in the puzzles, just like before.”

He clicked on the 3.png image. It opened to a picture with a dark red background and black text reading: “SEEK THROUGH THE CATALOG, FIND WHAT’S BELOW.” The text was followed by that symbol of a skull inside a hollow circle, divided in four. Below the text were three black-and-white photographs with captions beneath them: a black wand with white ends labeled “Magic Wand,” a spread-out deck of cards labelled “Card Game,” and a white fluffy cat labeled “Norwegian Forest Cat.”

Jackie frowned. “Okay, I don’t know what this means other than some sort of instructions, so I’m just going to plug this image into the editing program and see if anything shows up when I play with sliders.”

 _It sounds like we’re meant to find those images in some sort of catalog,_ JJ figured. _But what catalog?_

“I dunno. Maybe it’s in that other folder. You know, that came with this?” Chase wondered.

Jackie paused. “Maybe. I haven’t found anything in this image yet, so we can look what’s in there.” He went back into the files and opened the folder labeled 3.

What was inside were countless black-and-white photos, all with names written in numbers and a few letters. “What the…?” Jackie scrolled down…and down…and down…until he grabbed the scroll bar with his mouse and pulled it all the way to the bottom. “There must be hundreds of images in here!”

“Jesus,” Chase muttered. “Uh, I think this is the catalog.”

“How are we supposed to find three pictures out of all these?!” Jackie threw his hands in the air. “That could take hours! W-we don’t have that much time!” Jackie clasped his hand over his mouth, trying and failing to keep his eyes from watering. “It was rigged. This whole thing was rigged, we were never going to win it.” He blinked, and tears started falling down his face. He’d been scrambling, frantically trying to complete puzzles and reach the locations quickly, only for this? For two of his friends to die without him being able to do anything about it? What a sick game this was.

“No no no no, there has to be a way,” Chase took the laptop, using the mousepad to scroll through the photos, eyes scanning in rows. “Maybe they’re really early on, and this is meant to discourage us.”

“Chase, I don’t think that’s the case.” Jackie buried his hands in his folded arms. He was shaking.

“No, listen, there has to be a way.” Chase didn’t take his eyes off the screen. “This guy’s a sick fuck, but he also has another set of puzzles after this, he’s not gonna rig it so you fail before getting to that last set. There has to be a way to find—” He stopped, eyes suddenly widening. “We can use the find feature.”

Jackie looked up with red-rimmed eyes. “The what?”

“The find feature, the search bar, it’s built in to your files.” Chase circled the mouse around the search bar in the upper right corner of the window. “We just need to know what the images are called.”

“Well, uh…I think he gave us the image names. In the other picture, with the instructions.” Jackie gently took back the computer, switching to the other image. “See? Magic Wand, Card Game, and Norwegian Forest Cat.” Jackie typed the first phrase, Magic Wand, into the search bar. Nothing came up.

JJ tapped Jackie’s shoulder for attention. _All the photo titles are in that same code from before,_ he pointed out. _Perhaps we simply need to encode the titles of the images we’re looking for?_

Jackie suddenly threw his arms around JJ. “Jameson Jackson, you’re a genius.” He let go, then turned to his other side and hugged Chase too. “And you also, Chase! I don’t know if I’d have thought of the search.”

“Aw, it’s nothing,” Chase muttered, smiling a bit.

 _Really no problem at all,_ JJ signed.

“Well, I would’ve been stuck for a while. And time is of the essence.” Jackie opened up the same online code converter from before. He typed in the first phrase again, and then copied the result—4d 61 67 69 63 20 57 61 6e 64—and pasted it into the file search bar. Immediately, the image they’d been looking for popped up. “Yes!” Jackie shouted, punching the air.

“Wait, something’s up.” Chase leaned over and opened the image. There was a strange bit at the bottom, taken up with a white and black boxy symbol. “That looks like…I dunno, part of a QR code.”

“How much do you want to bet the rest of the code is in the other two images?” Jackie muttered.

After encoding the other titles and finding the images, it was clear that the QR code was split up between the three images. Jackie plugged all three into the photo editor, and arranged them next to each other so the code was complete. He patted his suit. “Fuck, do either of you have your phone?”

Chase checked his pockets. “No. I last remember setting it down on my desk, but then I passed out and woke up in that…place.”

JJ waggled his mustache, and pulled out his phone with a grin.

“Jays, I love you so much,” Jackie laughed. “Oh, the old-fashioned man is the one with the smartphone, how ironic.”

JJ passed it to Jackie. _It’s very helpful. I’m trying to make a habit of keeping it on my person._

“That’s a good idea.” Jackie leaned back a bit as he tried to get the entire code in view of the camera. Then he snapped a picture, and a notification immediately popped up, saying the code had been understood and explaining what it would do. “This’ll take us to a website…” Jackie said, clicking on the notification to activate the code. The browser on the phone opened up, 

Chase leaned over. “What’s that?”

“It’s a crossword puzzle.” Jackie groaned. He’d hoped the QR code would just give them the location to find Marvin, but no such luck. “Alright. Some of the squares are colored red, and at the bottom there’s this thing…” He scrolled down, and read out loud. “‘The address is 68′ and then a blank space. I bet we have to solve the crossword puzzle and then plug the letters from the red squares into this space to find the street address.”

 _Then what are we waiting for?_ JJ asked. _What is the puzzle asking for?_

Jackie looked through the hints. “Looks like a bunch of trivia…oh! I know the answer to number one! It’s Undertale.” Jackie smiled a bit. That was Marvin’s favorite game…thinking of Marvin, the smile faded. “Okay. Let’s go.”

By the time they finished, the clock read 3:25am. Piecing together the letters from the red squares, they came up with the address of 68 Aspen St. “That’s on the other side of town!” Jackie cried, distressed. “Okay. Okay, I can probably run there quickly, you guys will have to catch—”

“We can drive,” Chase suggested.

JJ frowned. _Chase, I know you can drive, but you don’t have your car._

“There’s a car right there, in that parking lot.” Chase pointed diagonally across the street. There was indeed a single car in an empty lot. “Jackie, do you still know how to hotwire things?”

“Ah—I mean, yeah, but are we really about to steal a car?” Jackie asked tentatively.

 _It’s either that or let Marvin die!_ JJ signed furiously. _We can return it after!_

Jackie jumped at JJ’s sudden motion, but then nodded. “Yeah, guess it’s the lesser of two evils, huh?” He shut the laptop. “Alright. We have to hurry. If my math’s correct, we only have about half an hour before that timer counts down. Let’s go.”


	7. The Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackie and the others arrive at the third location, cutting the time real close.

It took thirty minutes even to drive to the other side of town. A time that was helped along by the streets being almost empty at 3:30 in the morning, and also by Chase going…well, it was best to say a _little_ over the speed limit. Thankfully they didn’t run into any police with speedometers.

They reached the address quickly, Chase parking the car haphazardly on the side of the street. Jackie didn’t even wait for the car to fully stop before he’d pushed open the door and practically fell out, stumbling a bit before taking off in a dead run toward the building. It looked like an abandoned one-story house, just like one you’d see in the suburbs. But when Jackie threw open the door and ran inside, the interior was very different. The floor was metal, as were the walls, and florescent lights embedded in the ceiling lit the the hall, which led toward a large room.

“Jackie! Wait for us!” Chase called, his voice distant.

“Sorry, no time!” Jackie yelled back, not bothering to look behind him. The room at the end of the hall was completely unlit. Jackie didn’t care, and sprinted down the hall.

The room was dark, but light from the hall shone in, bright enough for Jackie to barely make out a camera on a tripod, hooked up to a computer on a folding table, long cables leaning from both to connect to the wall. The camera was pointed toward an especially dark part of the room, from which Jackie could hear water splashing and heavy breathing.

“Marvin?” Jackie called cautiously.

More splashing, accompanied by muffled shouting.

“Shit. Hang on!” Jackie began feeling around the walls, looking for a light switch. Rescue would be a thousand times more difficult in the dark. Luckily he found one, flipping it on with a _clunk_ sound. Industrial lights overhead turned on, revealing the mostly empty room, and the glass box with Marvin inside.

“Marvin! I’m here!” Jackie bolted across the room, falling to his knees next to the glass box. Marvin stared at him with wide eyes. The box was nearly full, and he had his face practically pressed against the top of the box to get as much air as possible, a feat made more difficult by the gag stuffed in his mouth. “Fuck, hang on, I’m getting you out of here,” Jackie promised. Marvin barely nodded, a small whimper escaping.

Jackie examined the box. It looked like glass, but he wasn’t sure if the gamemaster would build it out of something so breakable. The top of the box was interesting. The glass walls extended up over the top layer—which was punctuated with small holes—for another two inches. Jackie instantly knew that a design like that would mean the water would completely fill up the box, even overflowing, but anyone inside would be stuck under and unable to get out. He couldn’t see any hinges or locks that could possibly show how to open it.

“Holy shit!” Jackie jumped, looking over his shoulder to see Chase and JJ enter the room. Both of them were aghast.

“Guys, come help me! I don’t know how to open this!” Jackie pleaded.

Wasting no time, Chase ran forward. JJ followed closely, kneeling by the side of the box and signing reassurances to Marvin through the glass. “Okay, okay, there has to be a lid or something, how would he get inside otherwise?” Chase muttered. “Uh, is there a way to stop the water?”

Jackie looked at the area where the pipe connected to the box. “It’s like, welded onto there,” Jackie said. His eyes followed the pipe upward, where it ran along the wall. “But right there!” He pointed. “It looks like there’s a loose pipe. We just need to knock it off, or something.”

“How do we do that?”

“Uh…” Jackie looked around. “The camera tripod. Those things can be pretty heavy, and it should be able to reach.”

Chase was already moving the moment Jackie said ‘the tripod.’ He ran right over, pulling the camera off the top and throwing it onto the table. The tripod folded up easily enough. Chase lugged it over to the area under the loose pipe, raised it, and one!—two!—three!—four! strikes later the pipe burst, clattering to the ground in a spray of water that instantly drenched him.

Jackie exhaled slowly. “Alright. It’s going to be okay, Marvin, you’re not gonna drown. We’re getting you out.”

Marvin made a small sound, something in between relief and fear.

“I—I really don’t see any way to open this,” Jackie muttered. He ran his fingers along the edges of the box, looking for any sort of seam.

JJ looked over at him. _Maybe we should break it?_

“Can we do that? The last time I saw something see-through, it was plexiglass, unbreakable.”

JJ knocked on the wall of the box. _It sounds like regular glass._

“If we break it, broken glass is gonna fly everywhere,” Chase pointed out, joining the other two and dragging the tripod with him. “Are we okay with that? With risking Marvin getting hurt?”

 _Well, I think we should ask him,_ JJ signed. He knocked on the glass again, getting Marvin to look at him. _Marvin, we can break the glass to get you out, but there’s a chance you could get hurt. Are you willing to bear that?_

Marvin nodded vigorously, eyes wide.

Jackie took a deep breath. “Okay. If you’re sure. Chase, give the tripod to me.” He stood up and took the tripod from Chase, flipping it upside down. “Marvin, try to get away from this side, just to minimize…anything happening.” Movement was difficult, but Marvin scooted as far from the wall Jackie was indicating as possible. “Okay. Here we go. On the count of three.” Jackie hefted the tripod like a golf club, grateful that he had the strength to do so easily. “One…two…three!” And he swung with as much force as he could muster.

It turned out the box really was made of glass. Glass that could withstand restrained hits from someone curled up inside, but not a direct blow with a heavy tripod. The side of the box shattered inward, and water gushed out, leaving only a few inches inside.

Jackie dropped the tripod with a _thunk,_ and reached through the shattered hole he’d made to grab Marvin, huddling against the opposite side. “C’mere buddy, I got you, you’re okay, you’re okay.” Marvin allowed himself to be pulled out, the jagged glass edges scraping against his arms and torso, leaving shallow scrapes behind. “You’re fine, see? You’re out now.” Jackie continued muttering reassurances under his breath as he tugged at the gag around Marvin’s mouth until it came loose. Marvin proceeded to gasp for air.

Chase and JJ came close, kneeling nearby. “How’re you doing, dude?” Chase asked tentatively.

Marvin’s eyelids fluttered shut. “…fine. With how it is,” he said in a raspy voice. “What’s happening?”

JJ started signing, hands flying too fast for Jackie to catch. He focused on the rope holding Marvin’s hands behind his back, and then once that was untied, he worked on the rope around his ankles. By the time he was done, JJ had finished explaining the basics of the situation to Marvin.

“A game? Well, it’s all gone to shit,” Marvin muttered, rubbing his wrists.

“You can say that again,” Chase said, standing up. “We gotta get out of here.”

“Yeah, agreed.” Jackie stood up, helping Marvin to his feet as well. He coughed awkwardly. “Hey, uh, I dunno if this is the time to say this so you don’t have to answer, but how come you couldn’t get out of there? You’re, uh…magic.”

Marvin took several deep breaths. “Magic needs spell words. Or gestures. Or for you to stop freaking out long enough to focus on making a proper spell so it won’t backfire on you.”

Jackie winced. “Right…sorry.”

“‘s fine.” Marvin closed his eyes.

Suddenly, there was a burst of static. “ _You’re doing pretty great on time,_ ” came the gamemaster’s voice. “ _It’s currently 4:01am. You have two hours and nine minutes before the game ends._ ”

JJ’s expression darkened. He stood up, and signed viciously. _Why should we keep following your twisted game?! You’ve nothing left to bargain with!_

“Hey, fuckface, I know you don’t speak sign, so let me translate that for you,” Jackie growled. “You don’t have anything to tempt us to finish your stupid-ass psychotic game.”

“ _Well, that’s very rude of you,_ ” the gamemaster remarked. “ _The game can’t be psychotic, it’s not alive. And I don’t have any kind of psychosis. It’s kind of wrong for you to assume that because I’m messing with you, that I must have a mental illness. I think your doctor friend would take some issues if he heard you say that._ ”

Jackie flinched. “I-I didn’t mean it like that…”

“Shut up!” Chase yelled. “You’re a monster! And you can’t make us keep playing!”

“ _I can, actually. Because trust me, you’re going to want to complete the last set._ ” The gamemaster’s tone was far too smug for Jackie’s liking. “ _Unless you want the death of one of your friends on your hands._ ”

Jackie’s blood turned to ice. “What do you mean, you psych—you bastard?”

“ _Well, you’ll find out if you complete the next puzzle set in time. It is now 4:02am. You have two hours to solve the most difficult set. Good luck._ ” And with a crackle, his voice disappeared.

“Jesus fuck, we gotta get out of here,” Jackie muttered. “Come on, let’s go.”

They all left the building in silence. The sky outside was a lighter shade of blue than it had been when Jackie started the game, though it was still clearly night. Jackie sighed. “Alright. To the stolen car, then. Maybe we can drive around while we solve the next set. And figure out who he’s threatening this time.”

“I…I’m a bit confused,” Marvin said softly. “Wouldn’t we know who’s next?”

The others looked at him. “What do you mean?” Chase asked.

“Well, if he’s going after our group here, wouldn’t Schneep be the only one left?” Marvin reasoned. “So we gotta save Schneep, right?” He looked up as the others exchanged glances. “Right?”

Jackie covered his mouth, feeling tears prickle at his eyes. “Marvin…Henrik’s already…”

Marvin blinked. “Already what?”

Jackie shook his head, unable to finish. So Chase stepped up. “It was a…a trick. A fucking awful trick. There was this…trap rigged up, and Jackie had to…make a choice and—”

“I couldn’t choose!” Jackie blurted out. “I didn’t—didn’t even look, I just—and then Henrik, he—he’s gone, Marvin.”

Marvin stared, unprocessing. You could almost see the gears in his mind turning, grinding up the impossible news. He shook his head, backing away and looking between the others as if searching for a sign that they were joking. But they were serious as the grave. Marvin began shaking. He squeezed his eyes shut, wrapping his arms around himself and swaying from side to side. And then he let out a wordless, distressed sound, like a cross between a wail and a groan, that was followed by another, higher keen.

“I know…I know…” Jackie murmured. He blinked tears away. 

Chase took a shuddering breath. “Hey. Bro, we…we need to keep moving. We’re going into the car now.”

Marvin nodded, not opening his eyes. JJ hesitated, then gently rested a hand on Marvin’s arm. Marvin flinched at first, but then reached out and grabbed JJ’s hand. He squeezed it.

“Come on, everyone,” Chase said, walking forward toward the car, gesturing for the others to follow. “We have more puzzles to solve.”


	8. The Final Clues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group settles down to solve one last set of puzzles.

The time was 4:12am. Or 4:13, as Jackie booted up the laptop once more and watched the numbers shift. He sighed. The adrenaline was starting to wear off, and now there was a bone-deep weariness dragging him down. But he couldn’t stop. He had no doubt that the gamemaster had more tricks up his sleeve that he had to prevent.

Jackie was sitting in the passenger seat of the car. He briefly looked away from the screen and around at the others. Chase was in the driver’s seat, leaning on the wheel with his head in his folded arms. JJ and Marvin were in the back seat. Marvin had his forehead against the window with his eyes closed and his legs folded up on the seat. JJ looked composed, sitting straight with his hands in his lap, but anyone who knew him well could tell he was on edge by his shaky breathing and wide eyes staring directly forward.

They had to finish this.

Jackie’s eyes hardened, and he turned back to the laptop. He’d received one last email, and this one had only one thing attached: a file called 4.png. There was a message written as well: **Good luck with this one. You’ll need it :)**

“Fuck you,” Jackie muttered, opening the .png file.The image was nothing but a white screen, with lines of black rectangles. But Jackie recognized the formatting immediately: blacked-out text. And by this point he knew to plug the image into the picture editor and play with sliders. Brightening it up revealed the writing that had been blacked out: a bunch of numbers that by now he recognized as hexadecimal code. He groaned; this was an image, which meant he had to type it into the translator by hand instead of copy-pasting. That’s going to take forever.

As he was typing the code into the online translator, Jackie noticed something odd. This particular code was just a lot of repeating 30s and 31s, with the occasional 20 thrown in. That was…weird. Did that mean it was really just a few characters? Jackie clicked translate, and then immediately understood. It was binary language; a bunch of ones and zeros. He sighed. Well, at least he could copy this one.

The binary turned out to be yet another url: **yourfinalset.com**. Jackie frowned. “That’s not ominous at all,” he muttered, plugging it into the browser.

A loading bar popped up, and a cheerful-sounding chiptune began to play. That got everyone’s attention. JJ and Marvin looked at Jackie oddly, while Chase leaned over to look at the screen. “What kind of puzzle is this?” he asked.

“I dunno,” Jackie said, shrugging. A moment later, and the screen had loaded up. Jackie blinked. “Apparently it’s not a puzzle. It’s a game.”

“Wait, what?” Marvin pushed his head into the space between the driver’s seat and passenger seat. JJ did the same, pushing his way into an empty spot. “Oh my god, you!”

“What?” Jackie looked at him peculiarly.

“You!” Marvin pointed at the computer screen.

“Wait, bro, I get it.” Chase pointed as well. “The little avatar, it’s you.”

Jackie looked at the screen again. It showed a pixelated room with stone walls and a squiggly design on the floor, connected to three more identical rooms that were only half-on the screen. There was a character in the center of the room wearing a red outfit with a blue mask and brown hair. Jackie gaped. “Oh, it is. Shit, how long has this guy been planning this? If he had time to make a full video game.” He moved the little avatar into the next room, revealing more of the screen. And then again, only to find a dead end. “Oh, not just a game. This is a maze game.”

Marvin inhaled sharply. “I hate these.”

“Yeah, they can be annoying,” Chase agreed. “My guess is you have to make it through while taking notes of the letters on the floor.”

“Letters?” Jackie moved back to the first room. “Oh, that _is_ a W, isn’t it? Well, can someone write this down? Cause I’ll be too busy trying to find my way.”

 _If someone can give me a pen, I can,_ JJ signed.

“Here.” Chase grabbed a pencil off the dashboard and tossed it to him. “This person probably won’t mind if we use their pencil. I mean, we already stole their car, I don’t think they’ll be any more annoyed than they already are.”

 _My sentiments exactly,_ JJ agreed, grabbing a napkin from a compartment in the side of the car door next to him.

Ten minutes later, Jackie reached the end of the maze, signified by a small golden crown of pixels in the middle of the last room. The screen turned red, with black text: **YOU WIN! Enter password for next level.**

“Shit,” Jackie cursed. “I think this is where the letters come in. Jays?”

JJ passed the napkin to Jackie. There were a few crossed out rows of letters, but the final circled row was another url: **73707963616d657261.com**. “Why is nothing simple with this guy?!” Jackie suddenly shouted, punching the ceiling of the car.

“Because he hates us,” Marvin stated. His tone was casual, but he’d suddenly gone very stiff, as if he just remembered being in a small, enclosed space filling with water.

Jackie took a deep breath. “You’re not wrong. Gotta keep going.” He checked the time real quick: 4:27. Then he opened a new tab and entered the url.

The new website was just a white square with a play button and a download button. Jackie hesitated, then clicked play. The white square revealed itself to be a video, as the camera panned up from where it had been pointing at the snowy ground. The camera panned across, showing it was filming the city streets. And then it zoomed in on a pair of people across the road. There was no sound of the city, just a weird, distorted noise overlayed.

“Oh my god,” Jackie whispered. Chase covered his mouth, eyes wide.

“That’s…that’s us…” Marvin muttered, looking at JJ, who was significantly paler than he had been a few seconds ago. The video showed Marvin and JJ walking along the city streets, signing with each other and occasionally stopping to look in shop windows. The person filming followed entirely silently, always at a distance. “That’s…that’s fucked up.”

“There’s snow,” Jackie muttered. “How…how old is this?”

“I remember this,” Marvin muttered. “Look, we’re gonna stop outside of Gimley’s now.” The video showed them doing exactly that. “This was when I was giving JJ a tour of the city, showing him how it’s changed since he was…you know.” Marvin took a deep breath. “That was December two years ago.”

“Fuck. Fuck this,” Jackie said, pausing the video. “Two years…fuck this guy.”

JJ looked away from the screen, disappearing into the back seat once more.

“What do we do with this?” Chase asked quietly.

Jackie took a deep breath. “Well…did you hear that weird audio? My guess is we’re gonna have to look at that closer.” He downloaded the video.

Running a spectrogram on the video’s audio revealed a hidden message in the sound: The letters **JCHMJ**. Jackie immediately switched back to the maze game and entered those as the password. The screen loaded, revealing another level of the maze, the pixelated stone walls a darker color.

“No letters on the floor this time, “ Jackie noted. “Let’s go.”

4:39am by the time the next maze level was complete. Once again, the **YOU WIN!** screen popped up, but this one was different. In addition to a space to enter a password, there was a message: **Password is the timestamp** , followed by a date and the YouTube logo.

“We need to find a YouTube video?” Jackie asked.

“How are we supposed to know which video?! Do you know how many there are?!” Marvin cried.

“It’s 3:54,” Chase said all of a sudden.

Jackie and Marvin looked at him. “Chase?” Jackie asked. “How…do you know—”

“Trust me, I know,” Chase said. He was deliberately not looking at either of them. “It’s better than you guys looking for a video that’s not up anymore.”

Marvin looked confused, but Jackie’s eyes suddenly widened. He entered the timestamp into the space for the password, and the game instantly loaded up the next level. He looked over at Chase. “Hey…”

“Let’s just get through this next level, okay?” Chase cut him off.

Jackie stared at him a while longer, then nodded.

The last level had red stone walls, and took until 4:45 to complete. This time, the **YOU WIN!** screen didn’t have a space to enter a password, but instead a few lines of binary. Jackie sighed, then began typing the binary into the online translator by hand. Once translated, it turned out to be more hexadecimal code. Translating that once again let to an address: 25 Waverly Street.

“We only have an hour and a twenty minutes left,” Jackie said, rubbing his eyes.

“We could just…not go,” Marvin suggested. “What do we have left to lose if…no one else is…” He went silent.

“I don’t know,” Jackie said. “But I don’t want to find out. And honestly, at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy had sniper rifles trained on us to take us out if we stop playing along.”

“Then we better get going,” Chase said, starting the car.

In a building in the center of the city, the gamemaster watched through cameras as a car pulled away from the curb and started speeding through city streets. He wasn’t about to lie; he was impressed. He honestly hadn’t been expecting Jackieboy to get this far.

But the question was if he would survive the final stage.

The gamemaster swiveled in his seat, turning his attention to another camera. He pressed a button activating an intercom. “Are you ready for the grand finale?” he asked. Though the intercom was two-way, there was no answer. He laughed to himself.

Just a quick test run of the crucial mechanisms, and then…the gamemaster glanced at the edge of his desk. A mask was dangling off the corner.

The gamemaster smiled. This was turning out to be so much more satisfying than he ever could’ve guessed.


	9. The Maze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group arrives at the last location, and find a surprise inside.

“Oh cool, this building has multiple stories,” Jackie commented, peering out the car window as it rolled to a stop. “This guy’s upgrading for the grand finale.”

“Yay, a whole three floors,” Marvin drawled. He rubbed his temples. “Let’s just get this over with.”

“You can say that again.” Jackie opened the car door and stepped out. The time was 5:05am. They had a little over an hour to finish this game, or…well, at this point, Jackie didn’t know what would happen if they didn’t finish. But he didn’t want to find out.

The building had a double-door entrance, made of blacked-out glass. Yet another typed note was pasted on the door. Jackie leaned close and read: _Jackieboy should go inside alone. After ten minutes, the others should follow. If you don’t follow these instructions, I be you can guess what’ll happen ;)_ “Did he really type out a winky face?” Jackie muttered.

The others had followed, now reading the notes on their own, at their own pace. “That’s bullshit, he can’t threaten us,” Marvin growled.

 _Well, we don’t know that,_ JJ signed. _For all we know, breaking his rules will lead to the death of innocents._

“Or our own death,” Chase added.

“Y’know I’m sick of not having a choice,” Jackie sighed. Out of sheer spite, he ripped the note off, crumpled it into a tiny, tight ball, and threw it down the street. “Alright. I’m goin’ in. Set a timer for ten minutes, then follow me.”

Chase suddenly wrapped his arms around Jackie, squeezing tight before letting go. “Be careful, bro.”

Jackie smiled. “I will be. Promise.” He took a deep breath, looking around at the others. “I’ll see you guys soon.”

“Good luck,” Marvin said.

 _Ten minutes and we’re there,_ JJ reminded him.

“Thanks.” And he turned to the doors, took another breath, and disappeared inside.

The ten minutes spent waiting felt like an eternity. Marvin paced around the sidewalk, unable to keep still. JJ kept checking the time on his phone every twenty seconds. Chase went back inside the car and turned on the radio. Until, finally, JJ signed that time was up.

“Welp.” Marvin folded his arms. “I’ll be honest, I’m kinda nervous about going inside.”

“At least you have cool magic shit,” Chase pointed out, climbing back out of the car. “All I have is a gun, and I don’t even have that right now.”

 _If it makes either of you feel better, I doubt there would be a situation where force would count,_ JJ said helpfully. _These are puzzles and games, mind over matter._

“Oh great, another thing I don’t have right now,” Chase muttered.

 _You came up with the idea to use the search feature,_ JJ pointed out. _If you hadn’t done that, we may not have gotten to Marvin in time._

“We’re wasting minutes!” Marvin suddenly shouted. “Let’s go.” He pulled open the door and ducked inside, the other two hurrying to follow close behind.

The inside was a small room with three doorways. Two were open, one was blocked by a roll-down door that resembled a garage door. “Uh…which one do we take?” Chase asked.

I don’t know,” Marvin said, looking back and forth between them. “Guess we choose one at random? Other than the closed one.”

“Might as well.” Chase strolled forward, the other two close behind. The room beyond had three more doors, as well as a flat screen mounted on the wall.

 _It’s a maze,_ JJ realized.

“We don’t have time for a maze!” Marvin shouted. “We have less than an hour to finish this!”

Suddenly, the screen on the wall flickered to life. “ _Well, then I guess you should hurry._ ” It was the gamemaster’s voice.

“Shut the fuck up!” Marvin yelled.

“ _You know, there’s the trick about hugging the right wall._ ” The flat screen solidified into a video of a shadowy figure, sitting at a desk. “ _Maybe if you hurry, you can get to the second floor quickly. You’re really gonna want to see what’s up there._ ”

They exchanged looks. “…what’s on the second floor?” Chase ventured to ask.

“ _Well I’m not spoiling it for you,_ ” the gamemaster said, shrugging. “ _Guess you’re just gonna have to…_ step _up to the challenge._ ”

“Was that a pun? Was that a shitty pun?” Marvin demanded. There was a faint wheezing sound, and Marvin whirled on JJ. “Don’t laugh, it’s not funny.”

 _It wasn’t,_ JJ agreed. Yet he was smiling.

“ _I’ll just remind you of the time limit,_ ” the gamemaster said. “ _See you soon._ ” The silhouette reached to the side, and the screen turned off.

“Alright, we’re running through this maze with our hands on the right hall, let’s go! Go!” Chase didn’t even wait for the others, just breaking into a run. Luckily, the others followed.

The rooms were identical, except for when they ran into a dead end. Soon there was no way to tell where they were within the building. With no way of knowing where to go, they kept to the right-wall rule. Until, finally, they came to a metal staircase leading upward. JJ checked the time and told the others: _5:36 in the morning._

“That took way too long,” Chase said. “I’m pretty sure this guy is deliberately wasting the time he gave us. But we still have some left.”

“Well, let’s go upstairs, what are we waiting for?” Marvin started climbing.

The staircase to the second floor led to a single hallway with six doors. Five of them were open, one shut tight. “…okay now I don’t know where to go from here,” Marvin admitted.

 _Check the doors,obviously,_ JJ signed. _I suggest checking the closed door first. It must be closed for a reason._

“Alright, might as well.” Chase approached the closed door and turned the handle, only for it to stop turning. Locked. Luckily there was a key on a ring hanging from a peg in the wall. Chase grabbed it, tested the key in the door’s lock and found that it fit, then unlocked the door and opened it.

Upon entering the room, Chase froze. It was empty except for a screen mounted on a wall and one other thing…or rather, one other person. Chase gasped, covering his mouth. He could feel tears building in his eyes. “Sch…Schneep?” he whispered.

It was Schneep indeed. He was sitting in the corner, leaning against the wall. His eyes blinked slowly at Chase, looking a little dazed and out of it.

Marvin and JJ peered over Chase’s shoulders. JJ covered his mouth in shock. Marvin, who hadn’t been around for Schneep’s apparent death, just looked confused.

“Schneep!” Chase hurried over, kneeling next to Schneep and hugging him tightly. Schneep took a moment to realize the contact, stiffened, then relaxed and returned the hug. “Schneep, you’re okay! You’re okay, oh my god!”

“Mmm…” Schneep murmured.

Chase backed away from the hug, looking him over. “Oh my god, how are you okay?! We saw—well, I didn’t see anything, but I heard—”

“Mnn…faked…” Schneep said slowly.

“How could you fake that?” Chase shook his head. “You know what, it doesn’t matter, explain to me later. We have to get you out of here.” He climbed to his feet, pulling Schneep with him, who stumbled and practically fell against him.

“I…am so confused, just…” Marvin ran his hands through his hair, turning around to face the nearest wall. “So he’s not dead. It was fake. I shut down for nothing, okay, that’s fun. I…okay. Give me a moment.”

JJ, for his part, ran over to Chase and helped him support Schneep, draping one of Schneep’s arms over his shoulder. Schneep leaned his head against Chase, eyelids fluttering. JJ frowned, and signed, _Drugged?_

“I’m thinking so, yeah,” Chase agreed. “Well, we should get out of here before anything worse happens.”

Marvin turned around. “Guys, I think you’re forgetting something.”

 _What?_ JJ asked.

“Where’s Jackie?”

Everyone froze. Then Chase slapped his forehead. “I’m so stupid! We gotta find Jackie.”

 _How do we find him? Just search the building?_ JJ asked, confused.

The screen on the wall turned on again, the silhouette of the gamemaster showing up once again. “ _Well, maybe you guys should come up to the third floor. Jackieboy’s waiting for you up here._ ”

Chase frowned. “This feels like a trap.”

“ _Maybe it is!_ ” The gamemaster agreed. “ _But do you really want to take that chance?_ ”

They all looked at each other. And then, in unison, shook their heads.

“ _Great!_ ” The gamemaster leaned closer to the camera, and the shadows hiding his appearance lifted some what. Only enough to see his face…or rather, the mask he was wearing over his face, hiding it all. It was red, with a white smile upon it. It was impossible to even see the gamemaster’s eyes, just black eye-shapes where the holes would be.

“Holy shit,” Marvin muttered, tensing, taking a step back. JJ shifted uneasily, and Chase pulled Schneep closer.

Impossibly, the mask’s smile seemed to widen. “ _I’ll see you soon._ ” And the video cut to black.


	10. The Game Master

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone finally confronts the one behind the game.

“I hate this guy so much,” Marvin muttered. “He gives us no information, then makes us climb stairs.”

 _He also tried to kill us,_ JJ added.

“Well, that’s a given.”

Chase didn’t participate in the banter. He was too busy making sure Schneep was getting up the staircase well enough. A difficult job, when his friend kept stumbling and tripping over the steps. Chase was going to make sure nothing happened to him. Because god, he’d spent the last few hours terrified and grieving and he wasn’t going to let that repeat ever again.

“Huh. There’s a door. The last staircase didn’t have a door.” Marvin stepped aside so the others could see the metal door blocking their way to the third floor.

Chase frowned. “That looks…ominous. But, well, we have to open it, so do it already.”

Marvin nodded, grabbed the handle, and with a heave he pushed the door open. The four staggered into the room beyond.

A voice rang out. “Welcome, everyone, to the final challenge!”

The room was brightly-lit, studio lights shining into every shadowy corner. Cameras were set up around the walls, and the walls themselves were lined with screens. A few were linked to the cameras in the room, but many showed areas around the city, including the exteriors and interiors of all the buildings that the group had visited during the course of this twisted game.

“ _Guys!_ ” A voice shouted, followed by a clattering rattle.

Part of the room was blocked off, a wire mesh reaching from floor-to-ceiling, caging off a corner. Inside the blocked-off section was Jackie, fingers poking through the mesh holes as he shook it.

“Jackie!” Marvin shouted, distressed.

 _What happened?_ JJ asked.

“What happened was this fucking _coward_ decided to shoot me with a dart and I passed out,” Jackie said, scowling. “But nevermind about that. Are you okay? Wait…wait, Henrik?!”

“Surprise, he’s alive!” Chase said, smiling despite the situation. Schneep managed to focus on Jackie and give a small wave.

“Oh my god.” Jackie shook his head, grabbing his hair with his hands. “Oh my god,” he repeated with a breathy laugh and a smile. But that relief faded to confusion. “How, though? I-I saw—”

“What you saw was no more than a clever—and expensive—ruse,” a voice said. “Believe it or not, finding really good fake bodies is pretty difficult. Especially if you’re not going to explain what you’re using them for.”

Everyone’s attention turned towards the source of the voice. On the opposite wall, an especially large screen was mounted on the wall, displaying a blank red image. Underneath the screen was what looked like a makeshift control panel, a desk with all sorts of electronic, technical devices, wires running from consoles of buttons and disappearing into the walls. In front of the control station was a simple swivel desk chair. And sitting in the chair was a man wearing a mask.

“Oh my god, it’s him,” Chase gaped, unconsciously shifting his body so he was in between the man—the gamemaster—and Schneep.

“Oh great! I’m gonna fucking _kill him!_ ” Marvin’s eyes flared bright green.

“Whoa, hey, before you go any further, let me explain why you’re not going to want to do that.” The gamemaster picked up a device from the table, one resembling a remote control. “Now, you should notice how you four are standing on tile, but the floor beneath your friend Jackieboy’s feet is made of metal. Do you see that small box near the ceiling? That’s wired up to deliver 6 amps of electricity through that area. Which may not sound like a lot, but—” He laughed. “—is actually definitely enough to kill a human being. And that’s going to go off in, oh…let’s see, how long is it until your time’s up for the game?” A timer popped up on the screen behind him, showing 22 minutes, counting downward. “Oh yeah, that long! Unless I deactivate it with the code that I keep stored inside my head and nowhere else.”

Marvin’s eyes dimmed back to their normal blue. He looked the gamemaster over. He didn’t look like anything special. Wasn’t taller or heavier than average. His hair was ordinary brown, and wild like someone had messed it up in a fit of rage. He wore a black jacket, blue jeans, and a black t-shirt with that symbol—red skull inside a circle divided in four parts—on the chest. But then there was that mask. That red mask with that white smile, and black eyes that you could feel staring at you. Not to mention how this guy apparently planned out _everything._ “Fuck you,” Marvin growled, but he made no further move.

 _But there has to be a way to get Jackie out of here!_ JJ signed. _Is there some way to get that code?_

“There has to be,” Chase said. He looked at the gamemaster. “Look, there’s gotta be a way for us to win this, right? You wouldn’t put us in an impossible situation! That would kinda defeat the purpose of this being a game.”

“You’re right!” The gamemaster twirled the remote like a baton. “You guys have gotten farther than anyone’s gotten in a long time, but can you go all the way? Why don’t you all take a seat? I bet you’re getting tired of carrying your doctor friend around, and I can tell you that’s not going to wear off for a while.”

Schneep had the presence of mind to flip the gamemaster off.

“Second time tonight, that’s a new record.” The gamemaster leaned back in his chair. “Alright. Here’s how it’s going to work. I’m going to ask you four riddles. You can work together to solve them. If you get them all right before time runs out, then you win! If you don’t get them all before the time limit, then that current’s going to set off. And if you give me a wrong answer at any point, you get a warning shock. Alright?”

Chase had never before wanted to shoot anyone so badly. He looked around at the others.

“Guys, we’re not really in a position to negotiate,” Jackie said. He was surprisingly calm, for being told his life depended on getting the right answers on a riddle quiz.

“Negotiate with my flaming—ugh, fine,” Marvin grumbled. He sat on the floor, crossing his legs. “Might as well get comfortable.”

 _I suppose we have to,_ JJ sighed.

“Yeah.” Chase looked back at the gamemaster. “Okay, we’re ready for your riddles.”

“Great!” The gamemaster clapped his hands once, then stopped halfway before clapping again. “Here, first one’s a freebie. What walks on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three in the evening?”

 _Oh that one!_ JJ signed. _I know that one._

“It’s like, the stages of life, isn’t it?” Jackie asked, biting his thumbnail. “Baby, then adult, then an old person with a cane.”

“Technically kids walk on two legs, too,” Marvin pointed out. “And teenagers.”

“It’s simplified,” the gamemaster said. “But anyway, you got that one right! Good job, point for you.” He pressed a button on the control station, and a green checkmark appeared on the screen beneath the timer. “Now, second riddle. Listen carefully to the words: Can you answer this? If there’s a room with seven people, then you walk in and murder four, how many people are in the room?”

There was silence for a moment. Then Marvin spoke, “Five, right? Cause you’ll stay in the room, the four dead bodies will stay in there too, but the three people would probably run away.”

“Are we counting dead bodies as people?” Chase asked.

 _I think we would, that would make the riddle more difficult at first glance,_ JJ added.

“Yeah, so five?” Jackie asked.

“Five. The answer is five,” Chase said.

“Oh, I’m sorry ‘bout that.” The gamemaster pressed a button on the remote.

Jackie suddenly shrieked, jumping and stumbling back. “Sh-shit,” he stammered. “That—that—I wasn’t expecting—”

“Oh my god, are you okay?!” Chase asked, half-reaching towards the mesh wall before realizing it might shock him too.

“I-I-I’m fine,” Jackie said, shaking his head. “I just…that felt…weird.”

“Do we not count the bodies, then?” Marvin asked, pulling his fingers nervously.

“I mean, I guess we don’t?” Chase guessed. “But I don’t want to get it wrong agai—ow! Schneep, did you poke me?”

Schneep had. “Words…” he said. “Listen…listen to the…word…ing.” Even that small phrase had taken a lot of effort to push through whatever haze of drug was in his system, and his head immediately fell forward. Chase staggered a bit as Schneep leaned more weight on him.

“Listen to the wording?” Marvin frowned. “The riddle was ‘if there’s a room with seven people, then you walk in and murder four, how many people are in the room?’ What could you hear in the wording there?”

JJ’s eyes widened. _No, that wasn’t all!_ he signed hurriedly. _There was a first question. He asked, ‘can you answer this?’ It’s a yes or no question!_

Chase’s jaw dropped. “Oh, you bitch. Alright, then. Yes, we can answer that question.”

“There you go!” Another checkmark appeared on the screen behind the gamemaster.. “Doing pretty good for time. Now, this one’s a simple format of a riddle, pretty standard. Now…what belongs to you, but other people use it more than you?”

“My fucking…YouTube videos, I dunno,” Chase mumbled. He laughed suddenly. “What about ‘my life’!? That’s totally the answer, guys.”

“Chase, please, don’t fall apart now,” Jackie said softly. “We can do this. We have plenty of time left.”

“My…breath when I’m giving CPR,” Marvin mumbled, rubbing his head.

JJ frowned. _I don’t think it’s anything that specific._

“Well, obviously, we’re just throwing things out there right now,” Jackie said. “Gets you warmed up.”

“What, you weren’t warmed up by my last four sets of puzzles?” The gamemaster sounded slightly offended. He shook his head.” Well, that was three wrong answers in a row.”

Chase’s eyes widened. “Wait, no, those don’t—”

Jackie screamed, falling to the floor. A few loose blue sparks danced around the mesh. Once it was over, he lay on the floor, panting. JJ dropped to the floor beside him and started asking if he was alright. Chase would’ve done the same, if he wasn’t concerned he’d drop Schneep. Marvin, meanwhile, shot to his feet. “Those clearly weren’t serious attempts, you fuckwad!” he shouted.

“But they were attempts!” The gamemaster laughed. “And any attempt is a good one. Unless, of course, it’s wrong.”

“I’m going to kill you. I’m seriously going to kill you once this is over,” Marvin said in a low voice. “You better hope you can run fast enough.”

“Kill the body all you want, you’ll never be able to get rid of me.” The gamemaster’s tone shifted suddenly, becoming dangerously serious. Then it returned to normal. “But hey, you still don’t have the answer. How much time do you have left again?”

JJ suddenly looked up, and made a simple sign. It was like a flick; he touched his index and middle finger to his forehead, then twisted his wrist until his fingers were facing in front of his face.

“‘Name’?” Marvin repeated, confused.

“Oh, wait, that’s the answer!” Chase said excitedly. “Your name! It’s yours, but you don’t really use it except to sign papers, other people use it for you all the time.”

“Oh, very good.” The gamemaster sounded impressed. Another check mark appeared on screen. “And now…your final challenge.” He stood up, and recited:

“ _Only one color, but not one size.  
Stuck at the bottom, yet I easily fly.  
Present in sun, but not in rain.  
Doing no harm, and feeling no pain._  
 _What am I?_ ”

“Ah fuck, it’s a multiple clue one, I hate these,” Marvin mumbled. “What’s present in the sun but not in rain? Like a—”

“Don’t say anything!” Chase shrieked. “Any answer counts!”

 _Well, he can’t understand sign,_ JJ said, suddenly grinning. _What if we talked so he couldn’t know if we were guessing or not?_

Marvin’s eyes widened, and he smiled as well. _I like the way you think,_ he signed. His hands were slower than JJ’s, but somehow elegant. _I was thinking some kind of insect or animal._

Jackie slowly stood up, shaking off the effects of the shock and processing the conversation. _No, that wouldn’t make sense for the color and size clues,_ he signed. His movements were slower and bigger, but they got the point across. _What animal comes in different sizes but just one color?_

 _Besides, animals feel pain,_ JJ added.

 _So now we know it’s an inanimate object!_ Marvin argued. _That’s a start._

“…You know, I feel like you’re plotting,” the gamemaster suddenly said. “Maybe I should…stop that.” He took out the remote again.

Marvin’s head whipped toward him. “No—!”

Too late. Jackie screamed again, falling against the mesh wall this time, muscles spasming. For a moment, his mouth opened and closed silently, and then his breathing resumed.

“Okay, we’re gonna have to…figure this out on our own,” Marvin said, stunned.

They all fell silent. JJ knelt by Jackie, checking on him again. Marvin scrunched his eyes closed, pushing his hands against them and swaying as he thought. Chase, for his part, sank to the floor. Schneep leaned against his side, a few mumbled words escaping as he tried to figure out the riddle too. But Chase could only watch the timer count down.

Was it going to end here? There were worse places for it. But still, if it was going to end, he didn’t want it to be here. There were cameras recording, this sick gamemaster would probably get some amusement from it, and everything was brightly lit. There wasn’t even a shadow to hide in—

Chase stopped. Wait a minute…he glanced over to Jackie, who didn’t look too good, still slightly trembling from the last shock. If he was wrong, then…he looked back at the timer. And he took a deep breath. “It’s a shadow,” he said.

The others looked at him.

“The answer, it’s a shadow,” Chase repeated. “It’s always black, but it changes shape depending on what’s making it. It’s stuck on the ground. You need the sun to make one. And it’s not alive, so it can’t do harm or feel pain.”

Silence. And then, the gamemaster began laughing. “Well, done, Mr. Chase Brody!” He began clapping. “Well, guess you’re better at this than your name would have you think.”

“Gee, thanks,” Chase said dryly.

“You’re welcome!” The gamemaster typed something out on the remote’s keypad. The timer on the screen stopped, three and a half minutes left. There was a slight buzz, and a previously unnoticeable door in the mesh wall swung open. Instantly JJ darted inside, lifting Jackie up and half-dragging him out.

“I have to say, I’m impressed.” The gamemaster dropped the remote. “You’d be surprised how many people don’t finish this game. A lot of people watch just because they want them to fail, but I think it’s a lot more interesting when someone wins. I applaud you. All of you.”

“I’m sorry, ‘people watch’?” Chase repeated. He looked at the cameras around the room.

“Of course. You don’t think I go to all this effort and then just don’t show off?” The gamemaster chuckled. “Besides, I need funds for this. And the easiest way to do that is to make people pay to see it.”

Jackie suddenly burst into laughter. “You’re a Dark Web vlogger,” he giggled. “I-I’m not surprised.”

“I am not a vlogger, I just make games for people to enjoy. There’s a difference.”

“Can we shut up about this?!” Marvin turned to the gamemaster, approaching him before stopping halfway. “What’s going to save you now, huh?!” His eyes turned green.

“Nothing, really.” The gamemaster shrugged. “But you won’t. Not because you’re a good person, but because…do you really want the others to see you do something like that?”

Marvin stiffened, looking over his shoulder at the others. They were all staring at him. “Fuck,” he muttered. He turned back to the gamemaster. “You, sir, are an absolute dickface of a DM. You stalk us for two years at least, and you expect to just get away with it! You may walk out of here now, but will you in the future?”

“That’s a good question. I mean, some people are always up for a sequel, aren’t they?” The gamemaster tilted his head. “And for the record, I’ve been following you for _three_ years.”

“Why?!” Jackie suddenly blurted out.

“Well…I was actually originally interested in your friend Jack.” He laughed at the shock on their faces. “Oh yeah. Those interesting little moments in his videos, October three years ago? I thought that was his own little ARG he was setting up, and I’m not one to turn that down. But then I realized, it’s no augmented reality…for you it’s just reality.” He paused. “It’s… _interesting,_ how many people attached to YouTube find themselves staring into an evil that wears their own face. Whether that’s a pair of demon twins hunting the souls of your listeners, a rogue virus that’s copied your face—or mask, in that case—or a twisted entity made out of the dark twisted souls of a pair of siblings you wronged in your past life. It’s almost like something about the platform attracts the supernatural and unexplained…” He shrugged. “But that’s just a theory.”

Jackie got to his feet. “So…you expect us to just let you walk out of here?”

“Actually, I expect you to walk out of here and leave me alone. And, well, if you won’t, I do have this.” He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a gun. “Can’t hurt to be safe.”

JJ shook his head. _You’re mad._

“Oh hey! I know that one!” He imitated the sign. “I should really learn more of that, or maybe ASL. That could be useful. But that’s for the future.”

Chase narrowed his eyes. “Are you going to leave us alone after this?”

The mask’s smile seemed to widen. “What do you think?”

Silence.

“Well, now.” The gamemaster sat back down in his chair once again, taking the safety off the gun. “I think you know the way out, don’t you?”

And with nothing else to do, and a feeling of unsatisfaction, they left.

— — — — —

“We can’t seriously just let that guy go!” Marvin said the moment they were out of the building. “He could come after us at any moment!”

“Marvin, yes, I agree,” Jackie said tiredly. “He’s a danger to us and to other innocents. But it’s nearly 6:30 in the morning. None of us have slept. Schneep’s still fucking…I dunno, half-unconscious, and I’m feeling pretty shitty myself. We can’t do anything right now.”

Marvin actually stomped his foot. “Fine. Yes. But it _sucks!_ ”

 _It does,_ JJ agreed. _Honestly, as soon as we are able, we should go after him._

Jackie bit his lip. “That’s gonna be tough…I’ll bet you anything this guy’s good at covering his tracks. Maybe I could do some hacking, try to find whatever Dark Web website he’s posting these…games on. But I don’t know.”

“Guys, please, not now,” Chase said dully. “I…I want to go home.”

Jackie sighed, then gave a small, exhausted smile. “Yeah, me too. We should also maybe return the stolen car.”

“We can do that tomorrow, now let’s go the fuck to sleep,” Marvin said, climbing into the passenger seat of said stolen car.

Jackie laughed. “That sounds like a good idea.”

JJ, Jackie, and Schneep ended up in the back of the car, with Jackie sandwiched in the middle. Chase was still driving, turning on the car and setting off through roads that were starting to fill up with early morning traffic. The sky overhead was a dark blue, no longer black.

Jackie wrapped an arm around Schneep in a one-handed hug, pulling him close. He was really here. He saw him die, but he was really here. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again,” he muttered, blinking back hot tears. Schneep laughed under his breath, mumbling something about how he would try not to.

They had no way of knowing if this was over. Jackie was tired, burnt out from a night of adrenaline.

But they were all here. They were all okay. His friends were going to be okay.

Jackie sighed, closed his eyes, and it only took a few seconds for him to drift off.


End file.
